LE2

Welcome to Learning Event 2 🎯

Beginning with the End in Mind 🌟

Learning Event 2 focuses on backward design, a process that emphasizes planning educational experiences with the desired outcomes in mind.

Why Backward Design?

Backward design helps educators:

• Identify learning objectives and expected outcomes first.
• Develop a sequence of lessons and assessments that align with those objectives.
• Ensure that all instructional activities directly support the desired learning outcomes.

The concept was introduced in Ralph W. Tyler's Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (1947) and popularized by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe in Understanding by Design (1998).

By focusing on the end goal, backward design ensures that students actually achieve the objectives identified in LE1. This approach aligns activities, assessments, and tools with meaningful learning goals, even when transitioning to online or hybrid teaching.

READ 📖

1. Understanding by Design – Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching
   “Our lessons, units, and courses should be logically inferred from the results sought, not derived from the methods, books, and activities with which we are most comfortable.”

2. Understanding by Design (UbD) Framework – McTighe & Wiggins, 2012
   “The UbD framework is guided by evidence from cognitive psychology and results of student achievement studies.”

3. Creating a Course: “Understanding by Design” – Ashley Wiersma
   “Learning with understanding is more likely to promote transfer and application than simply memorizing information from a text or lecture.”

WATCH 🎥

1. Understanding by Design Workshop – Grant Wiggins (10:51)
2. Curricular Redesign Using Backward Design – Erica Halverson (9:36)
3. Outline Project Assessments Using Backward Design (4:46)

DISCUSS 💬

How will we support learners as they differentiate what is necessary to know from what is nice to know?

DO ✍️

Examine, review, and revise the activities and assessments in your course(s) to align with the principles of backward design.

Self-Check:

Backward design consists of three key stages:

1. Identify Results Desired:

   • What knowledge, skills, and dispositions should students master?
   • What are the big ideas students should retain?

2. Determine Acceptable Evidence:

   • How will you know students have achieved the desired outcomes?
   • What assessments will provide evidence of student learning?

3. Design Learning Experiences:

   • What knowledge and skills are needed to achieve the goals?
   • What instructional activities, methods, and resources are necessary?